Period Three Blog » 2008

Oct282008

CAN-SPAM updates to the law, what you should know.

Posted by Gene in Uncategorized, Email Marketing

On May 12th, 2008 the FTC updated some of its rules concerning the CAN-SPAM law(s), that should concern any of you that practice email marketing. The extended measures attempt to address 4 areas, in their words:

(1) an e-mail recipient cannot be required to pay a fee, provide information other than his or her e-mail address and opt-out preferences, or take any steps other than sending a reply e-mail message or visiting a single Internet Web page to opt out of receiving future e-mail from a sender;
(2) the definition of “sender” was modified to make it easier to determine which of multiple parties advertising in a single e-mail message is responsible for complying with the Act’s opt-out requirements;
(3) a “sender” of commercial e-mail can include an accurately-registered post office box or private mailbox established under United States Postal Service regulations to satisfy the Act’s requirement that a commercial e-mail display a “valid physical postal address”; and
(4) a definition of the term “person” was added to clarify that CAN-SPAM’s obligations are not limited to natural persons.

Here’s the skinny in my opinion:

Overall it’s about “permission” if someone doesn’t give you permission to send them email, don’t send it to them. This includes “forward, send-to-a-friend forms and people sharing lists with you.” Don’t do it, you can get in trouble. They also identify the “sender” as the person or company behind the email campaign - where it should be.

FYI: If you didn’t know, or never bothered to look up the name, CAN-SPAM stands for “Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing”. I’m thinking the name is actually getting outdated… Read the updates here.

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Oct222008

Things to come: Swiftpress

Posted by Gene in Period Three News

We’ve been hard at work on something new. We’re working on a new release of Swiftpress. It’s a much simpler, scaled down version of our current application. We’ve had really good success with Swiftpress and want to bring it to the masses, with a similar system but with far less features. I know it sounds backwards, but just wait you’ll see how cool it is for sending your email messages quickly, simply and without large “interface overhead”.

Here’s a sneak peek:

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Oct062008

It’s all in the details #1

Posted by Jay in Details

(This is the first of hopefully many posts that pull out little details from sites, shedding light on how it’s the little things that add up to make sites deep, cool, and interesting.)

We’re political junkies around here, so political blogs are probably more frequented than any other ‘type’ of site. Except for design sites, of course… But really, it’s hard these days not to pay attention to what’s going on. The Caucus blog at NYtimes.com, while being a really great read, is also, like the rest of the NYT site, designed really well. It’s a beautiful site. And one little detail that really does it for me is the “related” section at the bottom of each post. It’s just a well-designed little nugget of information, on the left is more links to other blog posts, and my favorite part is on the right, the all-caps green title of other blogs. It’s just somehow the perfect choice, it’s the only green on the whole page and it just pops out. Here’s an example, just scroll down to right above the comments.

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Oct032008

Twitter use by both candidates

Posted by Gene in Marketing, Social Web, Twitter

This is a really great article on how both candidates are using Twitter. It starts off a bit anti-McCain, get past that though and read deeper, this guy has some really good insight on how effective use of Twitter should be considered. I personally watch a good bit of Twitter chat-traffic myself and when people use it to just post out their latest blog post, using it as just another medium to broadcast a single point of info, it tends to fall and be less “special” to other Twitter(ers).

…they [Obama’s posts] all have a similar format: “Barack is here. Click here to watch him live.”

B-O-R-I-N-G tweets to me but still I can see how these little updates add value to his supporters who may want to see Barack campaigning on the trail rather than someone like me who wants to know what he’s having for lunch.

To me, authenticity matters most, and this is another example of Barack running an unauthentic online campaign. This is the opening that John McCain’s campaign could use to catch up.

Full post here

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CAN-SPAM updates to the law, what you should know.

Things to come: Swiftpress

It’s all in the details #1

Twitter use by both candidates

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